Jesus’ Words & Actions Teach Us His Identity

Joel Hemphill

Jesus’ Words Teach Us He is Not God

If Jesus said his Father is “the only true God” then he himself cannot be God (John 17:3).

If Jesus said “Why callest thou me good, there is none good but one, that is God,” he cannot be God (Matt. 19:17).

If Jesus said “I can of mine own self do nothing…If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true,” then he cannot be God (John 5:30-31).

If Jesus said “my Father is greater than I,” he cannot be God (John 14:28).

If Jesus said “I…am set down with my Father in his throne” then he cannot be God (Rev. 3:21).

If Jesus said, when Lazarus died in Bethany “I was not there,” then he cannot be God, for God is omnipresent (John 11:15).

If Jesus claimed the Father as “my God” seven times in the N.T., he himself cannot be God (Matt. 27:46; John 20:17; Rev. 3:12).

If Jesus claimed to be a “man” (Greek – anthropos “a human being”), again and again in Scripture, he cannot be God (John 8:28, 40; 12:23).

Jesus’ Actions Teach Us He is Not God

If Jesus was “driven by the Spirit into the wilderness” and was “forty days, tempted of Satan” (Mark 1:12-13), then he cannot be God, for “God cannot be tempted” (James 1:13).

If Jesus went to his home town of Nazareth “and he could there do no mighty work” because of their unbelief, he cannot be God (Mark 6:5-6).

If Jesus went to a fig tree seeing leaves, but not knowing if it had figs, then he cannot be God (Mark 11:13).

If Jesus did not have the authority to decide who would sit on his right or left hand in his own kingdom, then he cannot be God (Matt. 20:23).

If Jesus did not have “the times or the seasons” in his power, then he cannot be God (Acts 1:7).

If Jesus left planet earth to go to the Father, not knowing when he would return, then he cannot be God (Matt. 24:36; Mark 13:32).

If Jesus did not know the end-time events as recorded in Revelation, until after he ascended to the Father and God revealed them to him, then he cannot be God (Rev. 1:1).

Every Christian that says Jesus died on the cross, is saying he is not God because God cannot die! God is “immortal” which means “deathless, incapable of dying.” Jesus was mortal, “appointed to death” (Heb. 9:27-28).

If the disciples who saw Jesus ascend to heaven in Acts chapter one, did not pray to him in Acts chapter four, then he cannot be God (Acts 4:24-­30).

If Jesus said “I am the vine, ye are the branches” and “my Father is the husbandman” [i.e. the farmer, owner of the vineyard], then he himself cannot be God (John 15:1, 5).

If Jesus referred to himself as the “Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God,” then he cannot be God (Rev. 3:14).

“We know what we worship” (John 4:22). Jesus joins us in worshiping “the only true God,” his God and our God.

“…The testimony of Jesus: Worship God” (Rev. 19:10).

“…Worship God” (Rev. 22:9).

Hemphill, Joel W. (2010). A Summary of Jesus’ Words and Actions. In, Glory to God in the Highest (pp. 197-198). Joelton, TN: Trumpet Call Books.